Date/Time

Location

Description

This is a “Pay as you Exit” concert with a $10 suggested donation.
Over the past couple of years, Strictly Strings has continued to be recognized as one of the best up and coming young Appalachian String Bands to be found anywhere. In March of 2017, The N.C. Arts Council’s Executive Director, Wayne Martin, handpicked them to kick off the N.C. Arts Council’s 50th anniversary celebration in Raleigh. That led to their being selected to perform at the National Folk Festival in Greensboro, NC, on September 8th. The band is a product of the very successful Junior Appalachian Musicians(JAM) program in Boone, whose goal is to have older master musicians pass along treasured traditional tunes and songs to a new crop of young players. Their selection to perform at these very prestigious events was fitting, as the JAM program is supported by the N.C. Arts Council, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
2018 marks forty-six years since Rodney first danced with the Green Grass Cloggers and forty-seven since he was told he would “never make a clogger”! Over the years, he has shared his love of clogging and flatfooting by teaching workshops for beginners and experienced dancers at traditional music and dance camps around the country, so that no one else will be told, or led to believe, that they cannot “make a clogger.” He is a traditional dancer, caller, musician, storyteller, a veteran of the early days of the Green Grass Cloggers, and co-founder of the Fiddle Puppets (now known as Footworks). Over the years, he has traveled all across the US and in the British Isles, performing and teaching clogging, and calling square and contra dances. As a member of North Carolina’s Visiting Artist Program, he taught traditional dance in schools throughout western NC. Rodney has been instrumental in helping the Regional Junior Appalachian Musicians (JAM) program become a certified non-profit group that oversees JAM programs throughout mountain communities.